The Gift of Grief
by Lothloriel
Summary: Rather long oneshot, post-LB. Susan hears about the train wreck for the first time.


_**This world and its inhabitants belong to C.S. Lewis. I am borrowing them for my own amusement and will return them unharmed. **_

**8ooo8ooo8ooo8**

White, piercing light is the first thing that Susan sees when her eyelids flicker open. There are quiet murmurs around her, and she feels cool hands efficiently checking her pulse.

Reality takes a moment to settle in, and she methodically takes stock. The ceiling is familiar…she is lying on her own sofa, at home, in her little flat. Think. What happened? The others had gone to meet Eustace and his friend—some ridiculous business about Rings, and Magic, and Na—that place. She'd been getting ready to go out. The door-bell rang—and there was a serious-faced bobby, twisting his cap in his hands. Deep, slightly abashed voice, "Ma'am, h'it h'is my solemn dooty…"

Full cognition comes in a flash. Suddenly she is on her feet, thrusting the housekeeper away and shouting.

"Get out! All of you! Out!"

The housekeeper, worried and ineffectual, "Miss—"

"Out! Out!" She screams it again and again until the door has shut behind them and she collapses to her knees on the cold wooden floor, alone, alone, completely alone.

She does not know how long she kneels, staring at her hands, hearing the words play over and over in her head. "Names of deceased—Edmund Pevensie. Peter Pevensie. Lucy Pevensie. Helen Pevensie. John Pevensie."

Her voice, tight and contained, with a shrill note of panic. "Professor Kirke? Eustace Scrubb? Jill? Aunt Polly?"

The policeman, with a terrible finality. "No one came out of there, ma'am."

_No one came out of there_

_No one came out_

_No one_

_No one_

_No one_

It is like drums in her head, deep and horrible, pounding the two words into her brain so firmly they will never come out.

_No one._

She clamps her hands over her ears and starts to rock back and forth, moaning, trying to close out the noise, trying to erase it, make it go away, but it continues relentlessly.

_No one came out_

_No one_

_No one _

_No one_

Finally she breaks, and screams, and screams again, and suddenly the scream becomes a name, and she is screaming it over and over again.

"Aslan! Aslan! Aslan!"

She screams until her voice breaks and her throat closes off, screams until she has no air left to scream with and bends double, clutching the floor, sobbing for breath.

_CHILD._

One gasp of air and she is still, frozen in place and not daring to look up, not daring to believe that she knows his voice…

_Child._

Surely he could not be here. Not after all these years. Impossible for him to fit in her tiny flat in any case—

_Child._

And now she breathes in, because if she does not she will die, and with the air comes a sweet rushing scent, a wild, golden, intoxicating scent that carries with it the smell of a thousand fields of flowers and a wind off the sea and the simple fragrance of fresh young grass after a rain…

_Child. Look at me._

She raises her head just enough to catch a glimpse of golden fur, and before she knows what she is doing she has fallen prostrate at his paws, not daring even to touch them, terrified and agonized and desperate…

_Look at me._

All at once, because otherwise she will never do it, she gets to her knees and looks him straight in the eyes, and sees, in those ancient eyes, her story. From the first moment she stepped through the wardrobe to this very day, it is looking straight back at her, and she cannot move, cannot look away. For what may have been years or only a moment she is transfixed, and then she is released, and her gaze falls back to the floor.

_Child. Do you know why I am here?_

"I called you," she whispers, flushing a little at the boldness of the statement. "I called you, and you came."

_Do you know why I have not come before?_

At this the bitterness and anger and pain of the last ten years rises up and nearly chokes her, and she opens her mouth to speak—and closes it again, as golden fur brushes her cheek and her chin is gently raised.

"I didn't call you, Aslan," she says quietly, finding from somewhere the courage to look in his eyes. "I didn't call you, because I didn't believe. Or, I didn't believe that I believed. Because I was proud."

_You are growing wiser, Daughter. _

She shakes her head in denial and a wry edge creeps into his voice.

_I have not said that you are wise yet. To be wise is to learn, Daughter, and no one stops learning. Even when this life ends, learning does not._

The kindness in his eyes is unbearable and she bites her lip with force enough to break the skin as a red-hot prickling comes behind her eyes.

_They have come Home, child. They are happy. _

"Let me come, too!" The words burst out of her, pleading and childish, and hope rises so powerfully that it is painful. She knows the answer before he speaks and wraps her arms around herself as if to shield from a coming blow.

_Your work is not yet done, Daughter. Your life, too, must run its course._

"I can't!" She is past all shame, and the words pour out, trying only to make him stay, make him understand… "I can't, Aslan! I'm not strong enough, I'm not good enough, I can't do it alone! I couldn't even do it when the others were here, I can't go on without them, and what am I to do here, in England, I don't know what is needed, I don't know how to manage—"

He stoops, and she buries her face in his mane, clinging with all her strength and breathing in his heady fragrance. After a moment she sits up, and then stands, and though she is tall, she is still not quite as tall as he is. For a moment they simply look at one another, and then he takes a deep, deep breath and blows it out all around her.

It is gentle, steady, sweet breath, blowing her hair and skirt about her, curiously warm and surrounding her with a shimmering haze. For a moment she can see and hear nothing, and then a Voice whispers, filling the entire room and so soft she can barely hear it…

_I give you the gift of grief_.

The haze dissipates and she sinks unsupported to the floor, alone in what suddenly seems a huge open space, staring blankly at her hands as they lie in her lap. But something is different, something has changed…

She breathes in, and her breath hitches in her chest. Her lip trembles, and her shoulders begin to shake. She gasps, sobs, and suddenly a tear— a real, warm, salty tear, the first tear since the day she left Narnia, slips down her cheek and splashes into her palm. Unchecked, its comrades follow, pattering into her lap in a steady rain, tears filled with her pain and her anger, tears full of ten years of anguish, tears for Peter and Edmund and Lucy, for her parents, for Professor Kirke and Aunt Polly, even for Eustace and Jill. Tears for every time she had been hurt and for every time she had hurt someone else. And the last tear—the very last tear was for a dark-haired Queen of Narnia, called the Gentle, who had been buried alive for ten years and was only now returned.

**8ooo8ooo8ooo8**

**Note: **_If you haven't read "A Grief Observed," I recommend it. I always thought Lewis had shafted Susan, and this is my answer._


End file.
